


Little Things

by Cortesia



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Mild Language, Mutual Pining, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 15:24:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4710875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cortesia/pseuds/Cortesia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started out with little things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bicroft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bicroft/gifts).



> For the Summer Hartwin Secret Santa prompt: "everyone in the office thinks we're dating because we do ______ Things but OH MY GOD ARE WE??" AU
> 
> I didn't quite get to the AU part, but I hope this fulfills the spirit of the prompt.

It started with little things.

***

Eggsy found the chocolates his mum loved in his locker one day. He's seen his dad bring home the distinctive golden box more than once as a lad, but he's never caught the name. Now, an assortment of beautifully handcrafted truffles lay nestled inside a gold box with a small but thick stationary card on top. It simply read, "For your mother."

Eggsy smiled knowing they were from Harry. He'd been lamenting to the older man for ages that he had no idea what to get his mum for her birthday. Flowers were out because of Daisy's allergies, jewelry was out because his mum had found work as a nurse in a long-term care facility for victims of V-Day and they were disallowed jewelry.

Harry had mentioned Lee's chocolates and Eggsy beamed with the memory. He'd had a couple of the sweet chocolates as a young boy, but his face fell when he remembered that he had no idea where they came from. Harry had smiled at Eggsy, his smirk looking decidedly more vicious with his eyepatch firmly in place, and had said he'd take care of it.

Now, the box was there, and Eggsy was beyond thrilled. Roxy, who had been on a mission at the same time as Eggsy, spied them and squealed.

"Oh my God, Eggsy! Are those what I think they are?!"

"They're chocolates, innit?" Said Eggsy cheekily.

"Eggsy. Those aren't *just* chocolates. Those are hand rolled truffles from Les Anges. You can't get those. You can't. Their waiting list is incredibly long and they only make like a dozen of those boxes a day. No offense, but how in God's name did you get your hands on them?!"

Eggsy smirked and said simply, "Harry got ‘em for me."

Roy's flat look spoke volumes.

"Of course he did."

Eggsy just laughed, took the box, and left whistling a happy tune. This was going to make his mission to Sweden much more tolerable, knowing his mum had these to savor while he was away.

***

Likewise, Harry was more than a little touched to see the small tin of salmiakki on his desk a week later. He'd grown incredibly fond of the salty licorice from Scandinavia, but it was difficult to find the real, good stuff in the UK. He knew Eggsy had been headed to Stockholm for a mission, but given the fact that the lad was currently laid up in medical with a broken ankle and a concussion, Harry hadn't expected this.

Merlin, of course, noticed immediately. His voice crackled through Harry's glasses earpiece.

"So that's where the lad snuck out to. I had wondered where he was hobbling off to, trying to avoid the nurses. You'd think we'd have to strap him to the bed to keep him from escaping. Bad as you, honestly."

Harry snorted and opened the tin.

"I hardly think trying to escape medical is something I'd do."

"Do you not remember Kentucky at all, Harry? You had a bloody hole in your head and they still found you trying to leave the hospital."

Harry harrumphed and popped one of the salty bits into his mouth.

"I don't see how you can stomach that stuff. Tastes like shite liquor and my gran's haggis spices."

"I can stomach it because it's delicious, Merlin. Honestly, were you raised in a barn?"

"Aye, amongst the sheep we make love to."

"Piss off, Aodhán." Harry shut his glasses feed off, pulling another candy to his lips. Wouldn't do to waste them.

It was dreadfully kind of Eggsy to bring him these, after all.

***

It continued in this vein for months. Harry would find a little thing here or there for Eggsy and his family, a custom tie, or a tea set with kittens for Daisy, or even a day off out of the blue for Eggsy when he needed to mind his sister.

Eggsy, in turn, found all sorts of things he thought Harry might appreciate amongst his travels: exotic teas, a small statue of a man and a dog that looked suspiciously like Mr Pickles, a Russian nesting doll set custom painted to look like the current flock of Knights in order of their joining, Harry in his eyepatch as the largest, and a tiny Eggsy in his gold plaque jacket as the littlest centerpiece, a miniature JB loyally at his winged feet.

Neither man voiced their inner fondness for the other beyond the occasional note or quip accompanying their various gifts, but nor could either one deny their growing attraction to the other. Still, they remained quiet, both convinced the other was merely being nice or polite. They went to dinner together as friends, they trained and sparred together. To anyone else it might look like more, but both men just knew that it was wishful thinking on their part. The casual brushes of hands across backs and the lingering looks they shot each other when they thought he other wasn’t looking were becoming more and more obvious to everyone else, however. The rest of the Kingsman organization was stymied. The betting pools were stagnant, dates that had been "sure things" had passed with nary a whisper of a romantic entanglement, and Merlin was that much richer for it, having bet on the duo’s shared obliviousness.

Still, when Roxy flounced in and all but collapsed onto Merlin’s office sofa, so much like her namesake agent that he had to hide a small smile of sadness before turning to her, something had to give. And soon.

“What d’you want lass?”

“They’re idiots! Clearly they’re together, yes? And clearly they don’t want us to know about it. Why would they think they could hide something like this from an organization of _spies_?!”

Merlin said nothing, but arched an eyebrow, prompting the young agent to continue.

“I mean, honestly, Eggsy’s been pining since day one. And I know you’ve dealt with Harry’s reluctance to do anything nice for himself for _centuries_ , but this is just sad. We’re _happy_ for them, for fuck’s sake! No one is going to be upset with them. If they just came out to the rest of us, so to speak, we’d be thrilled! We’d all get to stop dancing around the subject of their relationship!”

“What relationship?” asked a very confused Harry from the doorway.

Merlin had the temerity granted to him by years of maturity and the inborn dourness of Scotland to only _nearly_ fall out of his chair while laughing himself hoarse at a pale-faced and bug-eyed Harry.

 

***

“Oi, Rox. You think Harry’s avoidin’ me?” asked Eggsy one afternoon not long after Harry’s personal revelation, as he and Lancelot practiced at the range at HQ.

“What do you mean?” She asked in response.

“S’been like a week and he hasn’t said so much as two words to me outside of official stuff. It’s just weird. Thought we were friends, yeah?”

“Maybe he’s just busy,” Roxy offered lamely.

“Maybe. Just don’t feel right.”

“I’m sure whatever it is, it’s nothing you’ve done. Just go ask him what’s going on, Eggsy. Surely he’s not so unapproachable that you can’t even do that.” Roxy’s sardonic tone set Eggsy’s cheeks aflame.

“Yeah. ‘Spose so.”

‘ _Boys,_ ’ she thought, rolling her eyes and firing more.

Eggsy did, however, take her advice to heart. He strolled to Arthur’s office, freshly dressed and a cocky smirk on his face that his inner feelings didn’t match once his range time was over. He knocked once and twisted the handle to see if the door was unlocked. It opened easily as Harry’s bright tenor, announcing he was available, was heard.

Eggsy came in and all but sprawled into one of the rustic but comfortable leather chairs that dat before the great desk. Harry sighed, fondness lacing it, as he watched the young man be seated without regard for permission or propriety.

Eggsy waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, Harry looked up at him, one eyebrow arched over the eyepatch.

“May I help you, Eggsy?” Harry asked, a thread of anxiousness in his tone. Eggsy picked up on it and gave Harry a strange look.

“Everythin’ alright? You seem… off. Like you don’t want to be around me anymore.”

“Nonsense, Eggsy. I’m just busy.”

“And I’d totally believe that if you hadn’t reread the last page four times. C’mon. What’s wrong. Did I do somethin’?” As he spoke, Eggsy noticed Harry grow paler and more nervous-looking than he’d ever seen the man look. Had it been for any other reason, Eggsy would have found the face hilariously comedic. Now, though, it made the apprehensive ball of worry that much bigger within his body.

Harry blinked a few times, looked down at the papers on his desk and muttered something.

“Pardon? Gentlemen don’t fuckin’ mutter, Harry.”

“Language, Eggsy,” said Harry, who sighed deeply and looked abashed at the pen he was twirling in his hands.

“Well then what did you say?” shot back Eggsy, his annoyance becoming rather clear by his tone.

“I… Did you know that I’ve had four knights and three staff members ask me if we’d broken up this week?”

Eggsy’s heart stuttered and he was sure his current impression of a gaping fish was Olympics-worthy.

“Uh, what? We was datin’?!”

“Mm. Quite. Roxy informed me last week that she and the rest of Kingsman were _happy_ that we’d finally begun dating each other and that they were rather sick of the longing looks and pining sighs. Not to mention the apparent overabundance of lovers’ gifts we seem content to fling in everyone’s faces.” Harry looked at the little Eggsy matryoshka doll at the end of the row he kept across the front of his desk and grimaced slightly.

“Of course, I set them straight. I told them-“ Harry cut himself off, the lump in his throat finally winning out over words. He sat unspeaking and unmoving for what felt like hours, the pen in his hands becoming warped under the pressure of his shaking and tensed hands. So when Eggsy spoke, Harry’s head snapped up with a nearly audible sound.

“Told ‘em what, Harry?” Eggsy asked quietly, the silence in the room becoming too much.

“…I told them that you’d never have chosen someone as old and past his prime like me. That you, were you dating anyone, would be looking among the youthful and beautiful. Like you,” Harry all but whispered, his voice breaking with the last word.

“Harry. Are you fucking serious right now? Did you seriously fuckin’ tell them that we weren’t datin’ because I wouldn’t think of you as sex on fuckin’ legs?”

“Well when you say it like _that_ …” Harry spat waspishly.

“ _Harry._ ”

“What was I supposed to say?! That the dinners, the gifts, the lessons and tutoring were all just the desperation of an old and broken man trying to show his beautiful boy how much he meant? That I could convince myself that I was happy knowing you liked my thoughtfulness, that it meant something more than politeness on your part? That you could give me that beautiful fucking grin all while looking elsewhere for someone else-“ This time a choked sob tore from Harry’s lips before he covered his mouth to contain his shuddering breathing. He only looked up when he felt Eggsy’s smaller hands come over his own, one on the hand at his lips and the other dragging lightly through his scalp. When Harry looked up at Eggsy, there was no derision or mocking laughter in the young man’s eyes. There was only a reflection of the love Harry knew to be in his own amber eye.

Eggsy just swallowed thickly and smiled down at Harry, his grin turning into soft, tear-filled laughter.

“Okay, first. I ain’t that fuckin’ shallow. Second, we ain’t datin’ because you never asked and if you had we’d have been goin’ at it like fuckin’ rabbits _decades ago,_ and third I’m gonna fuckin’ wreck you in about fifteen seconds so you’d best lock the door.”

Harry looked into the green eyes of his heart’s desire and cocked his head in supplication.

“Well. When you say it like _that_ ….”

***

Merlin smirked to himself as he closed the surveillance on Arthur’s office in deference to the spy-themed pornographic movie being unwittingly filmed within.

He opened a new window on his terminal, and began typing:

NEW MESSAGE//SEND (ALL): I WIN THE BET.


End file.
